


A Spark

by Altruistic_Computer



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alice Learns Magic, Gen, Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2020, You can read it as Valkyrie/Tanith if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27842347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altruistic_Computer/pseuds/Altruistic_Computer
Summary: Valkyrie had always promised Alice that she would teach her magic one day, she just didn't think that day would be so soon.
Relationships: Valkyrie Cain & Alison "Alice" Edgley, Valkyrie Cain & Tanith Low
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2020





	A Spark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carloabay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/gifts).



Valkyrie walked across the beach until she reached a sheltered area. The wind was rushing around her, so she was glad she’d made Alice bring her coat, even though it took quite some time to convince her that she would definitely be cold without it.

“Hey! Stephanie! Who’s that?” Alice ran over to the small part of the beach, which was sheltered by a ledge, seeing Tanith stood there.

“It’s Tanith, a friend of mine,” Val replied, smiling. “You might have met her before.”

“Hi! I’m Alice!” She shouted, running over. Valkyrie jogged after her, waving at Tanith.

“Alice… Cool,” said Tanith. “I’m guessing you want to know this: names are important. People can control you using them – never tell a stranger your name. Most people, like Val and me, change our names to something else.”

“I don’t have to change my name now?”

“No, not yet,” said Valkyrie. “If we’re lucky, you will not run into danger that needs you to change your name for a while. Now is just learning some basics. I didn’t want you to have to start learning so early, only 10 years old, but things are happening out there.”

“I want to learn to fly or shoot fire or,” Alice started.

“Maybe something a little bit simpler first,” Tanith added, guiding Alice a little further into the sheltered part of the beach. She smiled at Valkyrie with a wink. “Reminds me a bit of how you acted when you first started learning.”

“Hey, I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were the worst, Val,” she said. “I’m sure Alice is great with learning massive chunks of theory though.”

“No way! I get enough of that at school.”

“Completely different than you,” Tanith replied. “You were a model student, weren’t you, Val?”

“Yeah, totally,” Valkyrie added. She remembered all the times she’d missed school and sent the reflection so that she could meet Tanith or Skulduggery.

“So, what do we do next?”

“Well, to be honest, here’s where we might run into a few problems,” Valkyrie admitted. “Tanith’s a Wall-Walker – it isn’t really safe to practise that here. I’m… Just a bit odd.”

“Val is right,” Tanith continued. “But we can teach you the basics of Elemental magic now. That’s a start.”

“Okay. Can I learn to shoot fire at people yet?”

“Maybe not quite yet,” Tanith responded nervously.

“So how do I learn?”

“Remember that time I showed you the Star Wars films?” Valkyrie said. She doubted it and was pretty sure that her sister had been asleep for a great deal of the time.

“Yeah, they were boring,” Alice replied with a smirk, laughing as Tanith gave her a look like she had committed a crime.

“Well then, young Padawan, maybe that’s not the best analogy,” Valkyrie said, holding back her laughter as she looked at Tanith’s face. “But look. You have to see that all of this is connected to you. Think of yourself moving each individual particle of air. Just think about it for a second.”

Alice stared out at the sea in front of her, moving her hands in front of herself too. She closed her eyes for a second, opened them again and nodded.

“Now, I’ll need you to find a stone…”

Alice ran back, in what seemed like only seconds, holding a rock almost as big as her head. Valkyrie laughed until Tanith raised her eyebrows.  _ Yeah, I used to act like that. It was a long time ago.  _

“Maybe you need a smaller stone? I think that might make it easier,” Tanith interrupted.

Running haphazardly, shoes hitting the rocks, Alice scanned the beach for pebbles. Valkyrie looked ahead, hoping that she wouldn’t injure herself or get lost. Tanith gestured at Valkyrie to talk to her so she turned around.

“Are you okay?” Valkyrie knew that Tanith knew she had been worried about this. Valkyrie was glad that it hadn’t been as bad as she thought it might have been. While she’d certainly had doubts about letting her little sister learn magic so young, she felt more at peace with Tanith there to help.

“Yeah, actually. I am.” Tanith didn’t question her again, another thing she was glad about.

Alice scrambled back towards them, wielding a handful of pebbles. “What do I do now?”

“Sit down over there, place it on the ground and try to move it. Remember what I said,” Valkyrie said, putting her coat on the ground so that Alice could sit there without ruining her clothes.

Alice agreed, doing what Valkyrie had said. She pulled one of the pebbles from the pile, a small grey one that hadn’t been covered by seawater and placed it in front of herself. Her eyes focused on it with concentration. Her eyebrows seemed knitted together, her arms were tensed so much that they were frozen in place and her tongue stuck slightly out of her mouth.

She stayed like that for a few minutes, Tanith and Valkyrie watching. Her expression gradually moved from concentration to anger, until she looked like she was a hunter, and the small stone was her prey. She stayed there for a few more seconds, before throwing the rock to the side, and storming away.

The other two stood there for a few minutes, looking around with no clue what to do. They didn’t know where Alice had gone. After a few minutes, Valkyrie turned around. “We have to go look for her, she could get lost here.”

Tanith nodded in agreement while they followed Alice’s footprints across the beach.

She was hiding nearby, having not have run as far as they thought. She was clearly cold, scared and regretting the decision she had made, though neither believed she’d admit to that. Valkyrie tried to walk over to talk to her, but she ran a few steps further. Both Valkyrie and Tanith knew they could run faster than her but doubted it would help the already tense situation.

“Are you going to come back now?”

“It’s dark…”

Valkyrie hadn’t known her sister to dislike the dark, though she supposed she would too in her position – it would be frightening to see yourself as defenceless. She walked a little closer, trying to think of a solution to this problem. She shouldn’t have done this; her parents were going to be worried. Or she should have at least taken a torch, especially when she had someone she really didn’t want to harm with unpredictable magic around.

“You know what you said about fire? Try lighting it in your hands, just a little. It’s not going to hurt you if you’re careful,” Tanith interrupted, finding a solution which Valkyrie had missed. She silently hoped it would work.

Alice concentrated, looking at her hands with a fierce determination. She stood there, almost willing it to happen. She turned around.

Valkyrie saw that the slightest spark had caught in her hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked the fic! Have a nice Christmas if you celebrate that.


End file.
